Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Operation Divine Mercy: An Appeal to Catholic New Yorkers about Eucharistic Adoration
February 17, 2025
Dear Fellow Catholics in New York City,
We are still in the midst of the National Eucharistic Revival, a crucial multiyear initiative of the U.S. Bishops to reform and transform Catholic life in America in a Eucharistic key. It’s a time for all Catholics to grow in Eucharistic knowledge, faith, amazement, gratitude, love and life.
I’ve had the privilege to serve as one of 56 National Eucharistic Preachers appointed by the bishops to help catalyze the Revival. I was also given the extraordinary grace to spur and accompany the Seton Route of last year’s unprecedented 65-day National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
I’ll never be able to forget the massive Eucharistic processions last Memorial Day through the Bronx, Harlem, Manhattan and Brooklyn that were part of the Pilgrimage, as bishops, priests, deacons, religious and thousands of Catholic faithful accompanied Jesus through the city all the way until, together with Cardinal Dolan, we took Jesus in a boat across the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty, where he gave a Eucharistic benediction over Manhattan and blessed those on Liberty Island.
Spurred on by the fervor of the Eucharistic faith of New Yorkers, six young adult perpetual pilgrims and I, accompanied by CFRs, women religious from New Hampshire and others, then continued the Pilgrimage all the way to Indianapolis for the first National Eucharistic Congress in our country in 83 years.
I’ve now had the great joy to serve as a priest in New York City for the last decade. I’m a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, but in early 2015, I came here to the city to work, first at the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, then as Catholic Chaplain at Columbia University and now as the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies. I’ve lived at Holy Family and Corpus Christ Notre Dame Parishes, helped out at St. Agnes and other churches in the city, and served as a chaplain to the Sisters of Life, the Missionaries of Charity and the New York Chapter of the Leonine Forum. I love the vibrant faith of the Catholic Church here, which grows every year with the infusion of so many converts and reverts.
But there’s something BIG missing in Catholic life in New York City: a chapel with truly perpetual — 24/7 — adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
If you go to Paris, there has been perpetual adoration of Jesus at Sacre Coeur Basilica non-stop since August 1, 1885. They’ve kept it going — for 140 years, 51,000 days, 1.2 million hours! — through two World Wars, two pandemics, and increasing secularization. They keep it going today, even though Catholic life in Paris is nothing compared to Catholic life in New York, and there are only 2.1 million people in Paris, compared to 8.1 million here.
Moreover, there are 800 chapels with perpetual adoration in the United States, where Catholic faithful, in parishes big and small, in metropolises and rural dioceses, make the joint commitment to keep vigil before the Lord continuously. But what some Catholics in even tiny parishes with only 500 faithful have been able to pull off, New Yorkers, where millions of Catholics practice the faith, have not yet succeeded in doing.
This National Eucharistic Revival is a time for us to change that. This Lent is a time to change that.
New Yorkers have never been mediocre at anything. Like the motto of New York State, New Yorkers have always strived to be “excelsior,” to excel past what others do. The skyscrapers that continue to climb further upward in our city are a manifestation of the desire for excellence.
Even in the specifically Catholic ambit, the Church, too, looks to New York City, which St. John Paul II called “the capital of the world,” with our beautiful St. Patrick’s Cathedral being “America’s parish Church.”
If any place in the country should excel in love of the Eucharistic Lord Jesus, it should be New York City! For that to happen, though, we Catholics here must prioritize it and work together.
On August 1, 2023, the Dominican priests and the faithful at St. Joseph’s Parish in Greenwich Village boldly made a leap of faith to build an extraordinarily beautiful adoration chapel — with precious marble, wood and mosaic sculptures — in the hope that it would become Manhattan’s first truly perpetual adoration chapel. They raised the money to put in the top-notch security and state-of-the-art signup systems to help run it smoothly. Many of the parishioners, especially the young adult parishioners, have signed up to cover hours during the week. Others with variable schedules come whenever they can, some even for a holy hour each day.
In order for perpetual adoration to work, however, there’s a need for two adorers to commit to be present for each of the 168 hours over the course of the week, and there are still many hours lacking one or both of those adorers.
I’m hoping that, as Ash Wednesday approaches on March 5, and you pray about what you’re going to do as part of your Lenten prayer commitment, that you will consider signing up to be an adorer at St. Joseph’s so that, together with other Catholics throughout New York City, at least this Lent, we might be able to offer to the Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist this collective, continuous homage of grateful love.
This was the idea hatched in conversation with a couple of the perpetual pilgrims on the Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage with me, Zoe Dongas and Marina Frattaroli. We’re calling it Operation Divine Mercy, not just because of the name of the adoration chapel or the time of year we’re doing it, but because of the truth that Jesus’ making himself so available to us is a great act of his merciful love. And our prayer before him, as we offer to the Eternal Father his dearly beloved Son’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity (part of the prayer of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy Jesus revealed to St. Faustina) is the great way we call down God’s mercy on ourselves, on those we care about, on the Church and the world.
We’re hoping that you, too, will be part of this sacred initiative.
What’s stopping us? There are sometimes various reasons, which I’d like at least to raise.
One of the reasons why some faithful Catholics hesitate to sign up for the same slot every week is because their work, family or social commitments can vary. That’s clearly the case for me, because my responsibilities require a lot of travel. Because of the superb software running the adoration, however, it’s possible to sign up for a different hour every week, wherever there’s need, which is what I’ve done. If your schedule varies, please do the same.
(Another way to respond to a busy schedule is to sign up with a friend or family member together for the same hour. Some weeks you might not be able to come; other weeks the other might not, but, together, it’s easier to make a commitment so that you can cover for each other and make sure there’s at least one adorer there).
A second reason why some hesitate to sign up is because they have never been trained what to do during a holy hour, how fruitfully to spend the time, because an hour before our Creator and Redeemer can sometimes be intimidating. To help remedy that, I’m going to be doing a Zoom session on Ash Wednesday (March 5) at 8 pm to give some best practices. If you’ve never been taught about what to do in a holy hour, or if you just want to hear some other ideas, please join.
A third reason is basically because in New York we’re really blessed to have so many parishes open throughout the workday, many of which have some periods of adoration daily or weekly. It’s easy to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament and even holy hours. But if we’re going to make perpetual adoration work in the city, at least in the short-term, it’s going to mean that Catholics who love Jesus in the Eucharist prioritize one hour a week at the perpetual adoration chapel.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that we won’t go to our parish church to pray, where keeping adoration going there during the periods it’s offered might require a similar commitment. (I have a chapel in my office where other staff and I take time to adore the Lord, but I’m still making a commitment to take an early morning hour at St. Joseph’s each week.) If you’re already a committed adorer elsewhere — and may God bless you for being one! — I’m asking you prayerfully to consider a second hour at St. Joseph’s.
As committed adorers testify, we can never outgive Jesus in generosity. If we start to make time for him every week in this way — even and especially if there might be a sacrifice involved to do so — he will bless us tremendously. He asks us what he asked Peter, James and John in the Garden on Holy Thursday: to keep watch with him in prayer for an hour, confident that this is the way he strengthens our weak flesh to align with our willing spirit. Jesus has said to many saints and mystics how pleased he is whenever we make the time to be with him. That’s one reason why the Popes promote Eucharistic adoration so much.
So please pray about signing up to be an adorer at St. Joseph’s at least this Lent or perhaps through Divine Mercy Sunday (April 27) on which Pope Francis will canonize Carlo Acutis, the great Eucharistic apostle and adorer who died at 15 in 2006. To sign up is easy. Please just visit the adoration website, click on “Sign-up,” then make a commitment for a hour (you can sign up for individual weeks or a routine commitment every wake). You can then make arrangements to come by St. Joseph’s to get your unique key card that will give you secure access to the chapel.
I thank you for reading this Appeal and taking it to your prayer. I’d ask you to consider sharing it with the Catholics you know in the city.
Together, we can make truly perpetual adoration in New York City happen. Together we can give the Eucharistic Lord Jesus the time to work a true Eucharistic Revival in us and through us in the Church and world.
And who knows, in 140 years, people may talk about what we’ve done together in the same way the Catholic world thinks about Sacre Coeur in Paris!
With gratitude in the Eucharistic Lord Jesus,
Monsignor Roger Landry
P.S. If you have other questions, please visit the FAQ site at the St. Joseph’s website. If you’d have other questions, please feel free to email me and I’ll try to get you an answer!
(Correction: After the Appeal was published, I was contacted by an adorer from Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians Church in Woodside, part of the borough of Queens, saying that there is perpetual adoration at that parish. While fact-checking, I also found that nearby, at Corpus Christi Parish in Woodside, there is likewise perpetual adoration. In my various Google searches for “perpetual adoration in New York City” or “perpetual adoration in the Diocese of Brooklyn” didn’t pull up either chapel. I regret as well that none of the priests or adorers I consulted as to whether they knew of perpetual adoration chapels in other boroughs knew of those apparently hidden Eucharistic gems. I very much regret the error and I applaud the Catholics in Woodside part of Queens who have not just one but two perpetual adoration chapels, something that would be great to bring to Manhattan and the other three boroughs of New York City as well!)